His Eyes Were Blue
by Oasis Blackmore
Summary: If I love him, what business is it of his? Slash. Chad-centric. Oneshot. Post HSM 3.


**A/N: Parallel of my personal affliction, though my own experience is naturally less exciting, less angsty, and most definitely less slashy. Enjoy.**

His Eyes Were Blue

"_If I love you, what business is it of yours?"_ ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I blame him. It never woulda happened if he hadn't showed up on moving day. _His_ moving day.

See, he was going to California to be with his girlfriend, Gabriella, for college. Because college is all about keeping your relationship with your high school sweetheart. _Definitely_ not about dominating the court with your best friend since Pre-K, right? Right.

Okay, wait. Let's get one thing straight: I never _thought_ he would choose me. I _hoped_, yeah. I even prayed once or twice. But some things are just a lost cause. And one of those things was me and Troy.

Still, it broke me a little, when I found out last--that he was off to Cali, I mean. I shoulda been the _first_ one to know, but I wasn't, and I wasn't the one he chose, and I wasn't . . . Sometimes I think I wasn't even anything to him. I mean, he didn't even tell me face-to-face--and then he wondered why I ran off in such a hurry on graduation day.

I could see it in his face when we were in the gym. He wanted to know _why_. Why this was such a big deal to me, why it was so important that he stay. What was I supposed to say? How do you let your best friend know they're the most important person in the world? That you can't spend more than a weekend without them and not go crazy? That he's your reason for coming to school and for playing basketball. That he's all you ever think about, talk about, dream about. That I'm in love wi--

I couldn't tell him the truth, and it wasn't even any of his business anyway. So I felt some stuff for him that I probably shouldn't have and wanted things from him that he would never give me. So I was eating myself up inside and on a downward spiral. So I wanted to follow him to California and never have anything change.

So what?

It was none of his damn business because there was nothing he could ever do about it.

And that's why I said goodbye a couple days before he was leaving. I said, "Dude, don't come to my house 'cause I don't do goodbyes." And I didn't say the three stupid, girly words that were doing little Troy musical dance moves in my head.

So, on the day he was supposed to just get in his truck--the truck I'd helped him fix and jump and wash so many times--and drive all the way to Stanford and then Berkley, a whole thousand miles away, I thought he was gonna be packing with Gabriella and his parents, but he ended up at my house, looking like I shoulda expected him.

"What're you doing here?"

"Dude, I had to come say goodbye."

"Then say it and get out of here." 'Cause I could already feel that dumb crying thing about to happen, and I didn't want his last memory of me to be that.

"Chad, I know you're mad, but . . ." He gave some lame explanation and looked like he was sorry, but he didn't know the half of it. He didn't know what he was doing to me, and god, if he had just stayed away, left without seeing me like he was supposed to, he never, ever, _ever_ would have known.

But he couldn't make it easy for me because nothing with him was ever easy. He liked it complicated, dramatic, so that every important choice he ever made hurt at least one person along the way. This time, that person was me, and I shouldn't'a cared that he was just standing there watching me watching him with stupid tears all over my face.

I did care. And I think I mighta said so or opened my arms or did something really gay, 'cause all the sudden he was on me, just hugging. But it was tight, and it was Troy, and I thought I might not ever get over this stuff I was feeling.

And that's what did it. That's why I blame him. Because when he pulled away and kind of looked in my eyes and gave me his best "Sorry" smile, I just snapped.

His eyes were so fucking blue.

"I love you."

Like how writers talk about water and sky. Only more like sky when they got really wide.

"What?"

Like water because once you got to the deep end, you had to keep swimming and get . . . somewhere.

"I lo . . ." Drowning, panicking. "Like a brother, man. Duh."

And no one was throwing me an inner tube or a lifeline, so I looked down, away from his eyes, at his lips--out of all the places I coulda looked. He saw me staring and had that look that asked, "Why?" And I thought, _What the hell? Things couldn't get any worse._ And I kissed him.

When you love someone, you just _hope_ that they love you back--that when you kiss them they'll kiss you back.

Only dreams like that are lost causes. Just like me and Troy.

And he prob'ly thinks of me now as that gay friend he had that came onto him one time. But even if that's the story he tells, I know I'll always blame him and his blue eyes and tell myself that I knew it was none of his business.


End file.
